Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New pond owner

Hey yall. I’m in Seminole Ok, my wife and I just bought our place in December. We have three ponds on the property and I couldn’t be happier. Been fishing the two largest ponds the past week or so and have caught bass and crappie. This is the first bass fishing I’ve ever done (I’ve always just catfished) and I absolutely love it. I’m trying to learn all I can and the amount of info and different lures and how to use them and when to use them is pretty overwhelming. Happy to hear and look forward to learning.

Hey polarbeard, I’m relatively new to pond ownership as well but have been fishing my whole life. As someone who takes others fishing for my job I recommend learning 2 methods first, YouTube will show you how to rig these and they work everywhere. Drop shot and wacky rigs. The drop shot set up presents your bait (typically a soft plastic worm or minnow) from a few inches to several feet off the bottom. Less is more as far as the action you impart with the rod. The natural movement is plenty to get a strike. The wacky rigs is a good way to target larger bass and can be used around structure if hooks with a weed guard are used. Again cast it out let it fall on a slack line and move it slowly back to the boat or shore with a lift and fall retrieve. Best of luck.

Welcome to Pond Boss!

I might recommend reading some of the threads about the "relative weight" of game fish.

If you keep some catch records for your bass and crappie that show the date, the length, and the relative weight, then that will give the experts on the forum some valuable data for your ponds. (You probably need a separate record for each pond.)

They can use that data to evaluate your fish populations, and then make management recommendations. There are some serious experts in that field, and in the related fields on Pond Boss.

Congrats on your three ponds. Have fun "sampling" your fish populations this spring!

I’ll start keeping records of the fish I catch. Right now the ponds are really low. We’ve been in a drought for a while. My big pond is probably 4 -5 feet low. We need rain bad. Hopefully we’ll have a wet spring.

And a little bit NNW of you had enough rain that they are NOT under any burn restrictions.

Let’s see if I can get pics on here of what it looked like last spring vs now.

yeah we've been under a burn ban for a long time. there was a fire about a mile and half or so away from us today.

Welcome to Pond Boss!!!

A friend has a farm near Wilson. Now he said if they are out clearing for fencing or cutting wood, they have to have a source of water with them "just in case". It's amazing how wet it was a few months ago to how dry it is now.

Welcome to Pond Boss

Welcome to Pond Boss posting.

just pulled this one out of the pond today. I took yalls advice and started recording info on the ones I catch. This one was about 4 and a quarter pounds. I'm getting a digital scale to be more accurate.

I hope you did not turn that 4.2lb LMB back into the pond. All the dirt on it from lying or flopping on the ground wiped a huge amount of protective healthy body slime off it's body and in the current cool season it will surely develop a lot of body fungus and almost assuredly it will be dead by spawning season. Since it was flopping around horizontally gathering dirt, fungal spores, and huge amounts of various types of bacteria you would have been better to eat it rather than to have it die from fungus and bacterial infections. Just because they swim away does not mean it will live longer than 2-3 weeks. Many dead, dying fish never float. Death and floatation depends on several variables as to when and what caused the death and the specie of fish.

When one catches a fish, the fish should always be handled with wet hands, minimal touching and try hard to never let it touch the ground to wipe off body slime that allows the scale/skin layer to gather bacteria and fungal spores. Fish body slime is their basic immune system. When parts of the immune system are wiped away bacterial infections grow on/in the body scrape area that allow fungal growths and can other bacterial growths to flourish. Myriads of viruses, types of bacteria, and many types of aquatic fungi are constantly naturally present in all bodies of water. That is why fish have a slime layer to constantly shough off the pathogens.

All the people that fish in my pond have to use a rubberized net to get the fish out of the water if they are too big to lift out via the line.

That LMB is stunted and I'd remove it, which will happen now whether you put it back or kept it out. It should be at least a pound heavier. I bet if you use a bump board it will be 21"-21.5 in length. So, 5-6 pounds.

Well, thanks for that info. I had no idea. Just showing my ignorance I suppose. Won’t make that mistake again.

Never heard of a bump board, had to look it up. I’ll get one.

I had no clue that fish was stunted, it looked really good to me. Is there a chart somewhere that will say what a healthy bass should weigh at a certain length?

Just found out about relative weight index. Here is a link to a relative weight index calculator


Calculator

Big head, small body. In all fish, but especially panfish, look at their eyes. If they look big for their head, they are stunted because their eyes grow at a constant rate while the body/head may not.

Relative Weight Charts

On the back of my business card I have a RW chart for LMB and BG.

They make a folding bump board too. The plastic ones are hard to read, so I take some time in the off season and use a sharpie marker to make the graduations and numbers black.

Send me a PM with your name and address and I'll drop a few business cards in the mail to you. Same goes for anybody else here on the forum.

Thanks for the info. I’m sure their food source is low. With the pond being so low it’s probably hard for anything to thrive in it right now. Praying for rain.

Now that the pond is low, it also concentrates the fish in a smaller area making them easier to catch. In ponds like yours, take out 30 pounds of LMB per surface acre this year (if the pond was 2 acres when full, but now down to 1 acre, take out 60 pounds of bass). Bass of all sizes, but especially the stunted ones.

Get a digital scale that clamps onto the fish's lip, not one that has a hook that goes into their gills. For smaller fish like Bluegill, some pond managers use a scale that is used to weigh babies. You can also use your digital scale with a clamp if you put the fish in a plastic bag that was dipped n water. Even a plastic grocery bag will do. Or you can get fancier and get a bag like the tournament fishermen do. put water in it. tare out the bag, add fish and then weigh.

The envelope with a few business cards went out today.

Look at the cover/structure section of the forum. A pond should have cover/habitat for the fish to hide in and to loaf in to ambush their prey that is equal to 20%-25% of it's surface area.

This may be a dumb question, but how do I know if my pond even has 30 pounds of bass in it? If I take out that much, I worry about not having any left. I have no idea how many fish are in this pond.

You'd be surprised. Nothing has to be done quickly. It's more cost effective to form a plan first, figuring out your goals for the pond. Then take steps to implement those goals. The key is not to do something that you have to undo to do something later. Less $$ wasted that way.

Figure out your goals for the fishery. Larger bass and smaller bluegill? Up to 10" bluegill and 5#-6# bass? 12"+, 2# bluegill and lots of 12"-14" bass? There are lots of other options too. Once that is determined, an electroshock survey can be done to assess the fish population and at the same time fish can be removed that don't help you reach your fishery goals. Then once the population is assessed, a plan can be made to help you reach those goals.

Galvanized Gee Minnow Traps or Z-Traps can be used to sample smaller fish. Cheap and you can do that. A Fyke Net can be purchased, and used, but you need a boat if you don't have one. That would cost pretty close to what an electroshock survey would cost, and LMB don't go into a fyke net.

When a fish has a big head, large eyes, and a small body it is a good indicator that something isn't balanced. There are either too many predators, not enough forage, or most likely a combination of both. You're right; you have no idea how many bass are in the body of water but you do know that something is out of balance.

That knowledge now allows you to start taking measures to correct the ratio of forage fish to predator fish by harvesting predators and/or adding bait fish. It also may mean adding habitat or creating better spawning areas. Maybe you decide to start feeding the smaller forage fish. There are a lot of ways and combinations to help create that desired balance.

FWIW, as of February 2025 your pond there behind the house had a surface area of approximately 1 acre. The smaller pear or triangular shaped one up front was 0.62 ac, the small square one was 0.04 acre. Today the NWS says you are in a severe drought. It looks like ithe 1 ac pond was either renovated or had some dirt work done to it in 2005. The two front ponds were dug around 2007 - 2008, with the smaller pond being completed first. I would say the smaller pond was completed 6 months to a year prior to the other front pond being completed.

The deepest part of the bigger pond should be towards the dam that is on the South side of the pond.

Dang man, you know more about my new place than I do lol


How’d you get all that info??

And I can confirm the deep end of that pond is the south side by the dam.